In the months that I've been the Illyriad community manager and thus, the primary chat moderator, I've heard a lot of questions from players about how moderation works in global chat. I thought I'd take some time to clarify a few things in hopes of making chat run smoother for everyone.

First, I'd like to say, that overall our global chat is a shining example of an online community. I see on a regular basis new players come in and comment on how nice and helpful everyone is and how unusual that is to see in an online game. I do not take credit for that. That compliment belongs squarely with our amazing community members that have literally made Illyriad one of the best gaming communities of its type. You have my sincere thanks for that. And I want nothing more than for this to continue to be the case and for players of all types to feel welcome and comfortable in our game and global chat.

And with that, on with the rules clarifications. (Bold for important point emphasis.)

There are 2 types of chat silencing. The first is a one hour silence for profanity and spamming that happens automatically via a chat filter. The second are GM initiated silences that can last over 12 hours.

Mistyping words in order to get around the automatic chat filter is not acceptable and can earn you a GM chat silence.

After having been silenced, coming back on an alt or newly created character in order to complain about having been silenced is unacceptable behavior and will earn a chat silence for the second account. If you have two accounts and create a third for this purpose (or any purpose) you are in violation of multi-accounting rules and are subject to having accounts permanently suspended.

If you are silenced by me, I will send you an in-game mail with an explanation of why that you can reply to with any questions. If I am away and you are silenced by another member of the GM staff you will not get such a courtesy because you are taking away from their valuable development time, as their primary function is development not chat moderation.

No one on the GM staff will discuss publicly, or with individuals in private, the reasons for moderation, silencing or the status of suspended accounts with anyone other than the account holder themselves. Do not have your friend come to me and ask why you were silenced. It will get the same response and ultimately waste both of our time.

"But I was silenced for X and I saw someone else do X that is also against the rules."

This is a common response, and while slightly understandable it is important to focus on taking responsibility for your own actions instead of trying to deflect onto others. It will not work to get you out of trouble or have a moderation decision against you changed. Also, as mentioned above, chat moderation decisions are discussed in private with the person involved only. Just because you didn't see anything does not mean another person didn't receive a warning or silence for their actions. Also, if you are genuinely concerned about something someone else said, and that I may have not seen it, please open a petition under the "rules" category with as much information as possible and I will look into it.

This is an incredibly important point.It is absolutely not appropriate to goad me (or the rest of the GM staff) into silencing you for whatever reason. Do not attempt to test if I am watching chat at that moment by calling out my name and requesting to be banned or saying something intentionally against the rules. I have a zero tolerance policy against this behavior and it can absolutely get you permanently suspended from the game for harassing Illyriad staff.

Repeated violations against chat policies that result in either automatic silences or GM initiated silences can result in the permanent suspension of your game account. Yes, we do keep track of how often these things happen. Please, take these chat rules seriously as I do not want to have to ban people for this sort of easily preventable behavior.

It is OK if you do not like our rules or chat policies. You are entitled to your opinion about them. But, while you are in game and in global chat, you must respect them. This goes across the board. It does not matter how long you've been playing the game or how much prestige you've purchased. Those things never factor into moderation decisions.

I, for one, am looking forward to the release of player-created chat rooms so that everyone is able to create their own chat spaces about various topics that are not typically welcome in GC (politics or religion for example). But until that time, GC is all we have so please be patient and respect the rules.

At this time I will leave this thread open for comments. If it descends into personal attacks on me or anyone calling me an "unfair chat nazi" or the like, I will close the thread. If you would like to discuss anything I've said here in a civil and respectful manner you are welcome to do so.

GM Luna

These statements reflect the official policy of Illyriad Games Ltd as a company. If you need to re-read the rules they can be found here.

(PS. The April 1 "de-snuggle" chat filter did not count as a real silence and thus anyone who participated in that does not have it counted negatively against their account in any way.)

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot create polls in this forumYou cannot vote in polls in this forum